Reflecting on the Importance of Education

Reflecting on the Importance of Education

What would life resemble if I had no education? I am not altogether sure if financially, I would be better or worse off. I could not have applied for the job that I have at this moment. But on the flip side I would not owe money for financial loans. I could go on and on for a day with that cat and mouse game but I will spare you the naive attempts to prove a circular point.

What I can say is that having an education has proven to be beneficial due to the fact that it gives me a voice and a level of creditability. It gives me a voice because it amps my scholarship as I write and speak. It gives me parameters that allow me to collect my thoughts more cohesively. Through the different means, I am able to relate too many with simple keystrokes, that has the potential to reach millions in matter of moments. Genius is on display or lack thereof every time someone reads the words that are on the page. Michael Eric Dyson asserts, “Writing is a risk, a risk of exposure of ignorance on the page and the joy of self-discovery.” It is quite possible to lose one self in the midst of the lines leaving one to grapple with a self rescue through words and paragraphs.

Education has given me a since of creditability because it allows others see where you have matriculated and the level of discipline that you have mustered to see it through until the end. Now this is not really a bearing on your aptitude to learn but it does make a powerful statement.

Let me make a clarifying statement that going to school is not the sum total of education. A school setting is needed and good for some. The structured level of learning makes one prioritize and discipline themselves to see it through until the end. Learning has to take place through your entire life and must never stop. I know folks that didn’t go to college but have more wisdom than I can read in 20 books. My father is a wise man, a lot of my friends are wise men, my wife is wise but most of them did not finish college. They have a level of genius that cannot be interpreted by a grade point average. They have a functional wisdom that is productive to fulfill their call and vocation that God has for their life. They have embraced what Thelonius Monk defines as a genius-“a person who knows how to be themselves.”

Bottom line is education never stops as long as you are living and there are many ways to get it….